Manmade God
by Quamzin Kravshera
Summary: The Seals that bind the Apocalypse have been broken in this modern age and the pale rider once again reaches to sweep a third of the Earth away... Co-authored with Banquo.
1. And the dying shall envy the dead

Manmade God

Manmade God  
  
Irem Zhat Al Imad, City Of The Pillars.   
1800 BC  
  
From the east, a God came to this city of the dead. The tottering monuments long fallen, dressed stone swallowed by the desert sands. Of old, this ruin of weathered basalt, had a name that was all but forgotten to the God in white that stalked among the thousand pillars that rose from the trackless sands like accusing fingers at the Heavens.   
  
Beneath the heavy breastplate, the God dressed in what may once have been fine-spun cloths, now stained and torn. Girt at his side was a curious sword, dark and heavy, forged by the children of Tubal Cain from the secret Hittite metal, iron. Beneath the hood of his cloak, upon his brow, was a bascinet, also of iron, with a bronze visor worked in the shape of a human skull that covered half his face. The other half left exposed was smeared with blue Woad and horse fat as protection from the biting wind.  
  
In the centre of the city stood the half buried apex of a building, its sun dried brick well worn and more-than-half entombed. Around him, like revenant corpses, were the crumbling faces of hideous gods, askew on their bases, also prey to the sands. There was an odd shift in the colour of his eyes as he spoke more at himself than anything.  
  
"Here it ends."  
  
And then he began to brush away the sand.  
  
The sand embeds itself beneath his nails, adding to the grit left there from endless days of riding. Each layer of sand he removes from the earth symbolises a shield or wall that he has put up over the years. Each handful of sand is accompanied by a memory of his past. He remembers each detail, each murder, each raid. A village on fire... a child trampled beneath the hooves of his steed... armies in disarray... temples and people falling like chaff in the threshing mill.  
  
He continues to dig. The sounds of women and children screaming, crying for mercy. Some in languages he cannot understand but the absolute terror that surrounds those voices is unmistakeable. In time he remembers... the fear, the loathing, finally, the betrayal by those he once considered kin and his death by their hands.  
  
He remembers the banishment, the long and lonely search for answers... In time, he found those answers, or at least thought he did. He had power, that much was certain. Power over life. He had the strength to strive and slay other men, after all, the gods had granted all men this... Was it not all men ever needed in life?  
  
But now, he knew he had power over death. But mortals had not this gift, this was the province of the gods. Perhaps he was a god... And then he finally understood. Gods had no need for mortals, except perhaps as fodder for their monstrous appetites. Mortals feared the gods, as was proper. He would claim his godhead and the dominion over life he had been granted. He would be Death, the Renderer, the Reaver, the shadowy thing that all men feared yet could not battle...  
  
And as a god, he was magnificent! He instinctively knew what conduct he should pursue. The gods he knew were cruel and unheeding, turning a deaf ear to those who worshiped them and smiting down those foolish enough to tempt their wraths. And so he too, would become as cruel and as unheeding as his predecessors. He would become impassive as granite, unflinching in the face of the pitiful herd that was, by birthright, his to cull. The gods demanded sacrifice and so too would he take his claim. And thus was it, that a god rose from the sands of the Eastern deserts.  
  
And then he found her.  
  
A slip of a thing, barely a woman, yet desirable in her own way. Gods too, had appetites, did they not?  
  
Ah, there was fire in her eyes when she tried to stab him. Fire was a plaything of the gods so she would be his. In time, he broke her. Claimed her as was proper to the world. Man, his domination over Woman. But a strange humour began to overtake him soon after...  
  
*Was he a man?*  
  
Her remembered her smiles as he rode into camp. He remembered the way she prepared his meals and tended to his belongings, with care and lilt to her every action. And in those odd half-revoked moments, desire began to stir. He remembered the ways she cared for him with a tenderness he never thought he could feel again.  
  
*Feel.*  
  
A word that had meant nothing to him for almost a millennia. And yet, now a woman had melted the cold icy walls around him... A woman! He was a god! How could a god be humbled so? Could a god feel? He knew they could not. She was a pet! How could she be anything else?  
  
*Anything more?*  
  
That final dread scene replays in his mind over and over again as it had for a century. Cassandra calling out for him, for protection. Not from a God but from the man she loved and he does nothing. He stands stoically as his brother and his woman disappear inside of Kronos' tent. In that moment Methos feels emotions again beneath the nothingness that was his hallmark. Nothingness built upon anger and hate.  
  
For the first time since his ascent to the Provinces of the Gods, he understands what he has lost in his long search for truth. And his world shatters for it. He had loved, that much was certain now. And yet, he did nothing.  
  
It would take time, to struggle in the Question once more. All this time, in fact. But it began that terrible night, when unbeknownst to him as he stood there alone watching the tent of his brother, when for the first time, a god shed a single tear.  
  
Perhaps he was not a god. For gods did not anguish and they did not regret. Like he did.  
  
The sands are stripped away as he makes his way into the long dead chambers. The light of day has long since gone yet again as the months toll on and on and all that is left is the soft shuffle of his boots scraping against the floor of the temple as he pushes and digs further inside. In time he remembers. He can hear the thundering rumble of horses galloping away from destruction, four figures framed by the smoke and fire behind them. Burned bodies still a blaze on the ground bent down in silent mock worship of the demons who had razed their village and life as they knew it to the ground.  
  
The stars outside have long fled and the only light in the chamber is provided by the half-hidden moon whose fell light makes the man glow like some spectral guardian haunting the temple as he walks in and out of the apex each time only to carry more dirt out of the building. He continues to dig until the grim images of himself and his brethren once again tower over the rotten stone and the hideous altar upon where the people who had worshiped him so long ago offered sacrifice to stay his vengeful hand.  
  
As he removes the lid of the altar, the grinding of the stone reminds him once again of horses a gallop. The bowl of offering that once held the blood of the gods now held naught but dust. The man allows himself a slight grin as he remembers how many things had been reduced to dust either by the passage of time or at his own hands.  
  
He fills the oil lamps with the fat from his arms, his dagger carving long lines as he strips sinew and skin. He feels no pain as he is beyond that at the moment. His eyes watch the sputtering and acrid flames as the quickening heals him. And his eyes turn to the hollowed-out altar, its lid askew. He removes his cloak and riding clothes along with his daggers and sword. Folding the clothes neatly, he places them on top of the dust inside of the altar next to his weapons. Next comes the iron breastplate that has served him the last millennia. Finally he reaches back and unlatches the bascinet, placing it atop the pile.  
  
Hopefully some holiness remains there that would cleanse the blood and horror from the garments and the metal. A slight grin touches his face, the first in centuries...  
  
"As if I was ever that holy."  
  
Then begins to replace the stone slab. The man can catch only a brief glimpse of what is inside the altar as the moon light glints on the mask on last time before closing the lid. Again the sounds of horses return, along with the sounds of sword and axe swinging in the air and the sounds of flesh and bone being torn and broken. A voice calls out to him in his mind:  
  
"Come brother! We ride!"  
  
He stops a moment, cursing himself for nearly forgetting and draws from his pack, several scrolls of beaten copper, sealed with wax. These he stares at for the longest time before securing it within the confines of the altar.  
  
The chamber was dim, the braziers and lamp bowls throwing ghastly shadows upon the walls. And he threw himself upon the altar, the sacrificial knife screaming for blood. He slit his arms from elbow to wrists, watching his blood stain the offering bowl.  
  
"A God dies here, this night!" he screamed as he plunged the dagger into his heart...  
  
**************  
  
In the pale pre-dawn, a man washes himself with water, more precious than life in these unforgiving sands. The blue Woad, he rubs off of his face. His old garments being caked with blood from his sacrifice, he strips them from his body and dons sackcloth as an atonement, or the beginning of one.  
  
The sun will soon rise as he walks away from the temple. The fires are dying now. In the distance the beginnings of a sand storm can be seen and he knows he will die over and over again as he had done coming to this forgotten place.  
  
The man says to himself, "Never again."  
  
Well away, he turns in startlement, knowing that he is being watched. And yet there is no one. The temple doorways seem to be patiently awaiting his return, as if he would ever do so. And then beyond the ruined pillars, to the north, he thinks he sees a figure watching him. But as he stares out into the distance, he knows there is nothing there.  
  
For a moment he remembers her.  
  
He remembers her then turns and soon disappears in the morning heat.  
  
In this city of the dead, the desert winds pick up and engulf the ruins once more and the temple is sacrificed to the desert sands and vanishes once again.  
  
************  
  
Hotel Drei Könige am Rhein  
Basel, Switzerland  
1995  
  
The nightmare began as it always did. Silas' axe is raised poised above her head ready to take the head of the monster kneeling before her. He is crying for his dead brother. A brother killed by his own hand. The hypocrite. The killer. The monster. The demon. The destroyer of all she had ever known or loved.  
  
She had loved him. Yet she let his brother take her away. She was just a passing fancy something to use and pass on when the time seemed right. But god help her, she still loved him even now. And for these feelings she knew he did not deserve, she will hate herself forever.  
  
But she would show him that she would not go so easily this time. Her body stands ready to take the head of the being who was the root of all her fears, her hatred, her sadness, her heart of hearts. She is about to kill him when he looks up at her with his odd-coloured eyes. Eyes that wherein she had seen contempt, anger, tenderness and sometimes fear play across so many times ago in a life long past. They now looked up at her with exhaustion. But of what, the fight with his brother? She did not understand. Perhaps she never did.  
  
She begins to bring the axe down aiming for the neck he exposes to her inviting her to end it all. But before she can sever his head a sword stop her descent along with a voice saying, "No child! Stay your hand!"  
  
It is not Duncan's.  
  
Following the sword she realizes that is familiar. It is the sword Methos had used while riding with his brothers. The person holding it is wearing the ancient garb of death. The white shirt and riding pants the white cloak, everything. Everything except of mask of death. The man's face is painted as Methos' had been but the face belongs not to Methos but to that of another face from her past, Hijad.  
  
Backing away from the image of her father Cassandra is unsure of what to make of him. "why father? He has hurt me so and he killed you and the rest. He destroyed everything!"  
  
"Actions do not come without reason child. Look." he says the world changes around them. They are back in the desert but not the desert she remembers. Before them is the remains of a temple. Suddenly inside, she can see Methos placing something inside the altar. The deserts surround her once more as the ruins fade around her. Hijad grabs Cassandra's attention by saying, "The human race could have been him so easily child. Actions do not come with out reason."  
  
"But they also do not come with out consequence!" Cassandra shouts at her father. "I will never be like him!"  
  
"Are you so sure? Look at yourself." He tells her.  
  
Looking down on herself she is horrified to see that she was now wearing the garb of Death. The axe in her hand is now the sword that her father just held. Her father is now dressed as he did so long ago. In shock she drops the weapon.  
  
Looking back at the temple she sees Methos walking away but in the temple doorway, beneath the lintel, she sees the figure of death standing there as if was waiting for someone.  
  
"Death is someone we all could become child, but it takes someone of great will and resolve to walk away." He says pointing at the figure growing smaller on the horizon. Pointing back to the temple he says to her, "Go there child, look upon the altar and understand what it is that can be found there."  
  
Unwilling to come close to the grim thing standing in the doorway, and yet even more unwilling to disappoint her father she begins to approach the temple. The years that have steeled her soul strip away with each step she takes and soon she is the frightened child she was so long ago when out of the sun those four creatures rode. The ghastly guardian notices her and soon its stature grows as if to trample her and all the world.  
  
Cassandra screams and falls in fear and finds that she has only taken a few step away from where her father stands. The thing in the doorway just watches, waiting.  
  
The world around her begins to tremble and fade away. Cassandra says confused, "I don't understand father! I don't know where this place is or what I have to do!"  
  
"Do not fret," Hijad says in a comforting voice. "All will be revealed in time, for in time, all things be they beast or men, lick their wounds and heal. You are a forgiving soul, never forget that. But your wounds are deep and only your master can cleanse those hurts."  
  
"He is not my master!" Cassandra cries, more aghast than in denial. "I have escaped his bonds! I am my own now!"  
  
Hijad just looks at her with all the love a father has for a child. "all things have their place child, and all things their price. You are a healer, never forget that. But even healers can be wounded. Go to the nameless city and hear the words of death and be healed." Upon her knees, Cassandra began to cry, understanding the nature of her wounds. Her tears and sobs wracking her now frail form.  
  
"How can you ask this of me?" Her voice small and cracked. "He has lied for so long that even he no longer recognises what he says for lies. How can his words heal when even he recognises that there is no substance to them? That which you say will heal me does not exist."  
  
Just as he had done when Cassandra was a child, Hijad brushed away her tears and held her close giving her peace. "You were tempted to become Death, but you turned away from his seducement. For that I am most proud." With that, the desert began to fade.  
  
"Don't leave me Father! Don't leave me!" She cries in pain as reality faded into blackness.  
  
Hijad's voice reaches her from the nothingness. "I have never left you child. Never."  
  
*****************  
  
Cassandra sits up in her bed. Scanning the room she sees that she is in her hotel room in Switzerland. Her clothes as well as the sheets are drenched in her sweat. Breathing deeply she concentrates on the dream before is has a chance to evaporate into her subconscious mind. It was so clear in her mind that she could still smell the desert. She could feel the dry hot winds bite at her cheeks. She could still see her father saving the life of Methos.  
  
*Why?*  
  
Methos and his brothers had murdered Hijad and yet her father stayed her hand! The reality of it left her mind reeling and her mouth thick and dry.  
  
Perhaps the dream wasn't a vision at all, just a piece of her mind still weak and submissive, unwilling to raise a hand against her former master. She thought she had grown stronger down the centuries. In time she learned to strike back, to use the well of resolve within her to propel her past her personal sufferings, in order to protect the innocent of the Earth from the predations of the rapacious.  
  
But when it came down to it, she was denied the opportunity to avenge her nation's murder. Denied by the one person whom she could not lift a hand against.  
  
Poor sweet Duncan. He never understood.  
  
*There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.*  
  
He never believed.  
  
Duncan MacLeod's experiences in life had left him with a more or less impartial stance on matters of faith. His world was a tangible one. One he needed to see in order to fight. He needed that tangibility. Cassandra knew and had always known that soon he would have to face an evil that had neither shape nor form, that in order to win against that which was to come, he would have to have faith in something more than his sword... Oh, his heart was forgiving... too forgiving.  
  
And that was why in his ignorance, she had been forced to allow Methos to further his dread appetites upon the Earth. If she had not, then that final thread of trust between her and her highland child would have been forever severed and she would have condemned his soul to defeat.  
  
With bitterness, she knew Duncan would never listen now to what she had foreseen of her master of old. She had foreseen the ruin that he would bring to this modern age... She had looked upon a new holocaust, one of fire and steel and watched the dead, torn and tattered, lying beside those who would soon join them.  
  
In her nightmares, she saw her own ravaged flesh, being given as a feast to demons. And she had seen Him walking among them, unchallenged. Methos. Standing tall, bloody sword in hand, as that unholy throng parted before him...  
  
*And in their multitudes, they abased themselves and did Him homage.*  
  
Cassandra was alone now, she knew. Duncan had his own battle to join. No help would come from him. What now of Methos? All she was left with, this pale morning were questions as she reviewed both her dream and her actions at Kronos' lair.  
  
She remembered Duncan's voice telling her to stop but, something else stopped her. Something inside. Was it Duncan who stopped her or was it... Hijad? And for what reason? What reasons could there be to allow Methos to fulfill those terrible portents?   
  
She couldn't have any feelings for Methos now, she knew. She had thrown all those away when he allowed Kronos to take her. Cassandra laid back down on the sweat-covered sheet as she puzzled over Methos' words to her as she sat trapped inside that cage...   
  
*You forgot what I was.*  
  
Perhaps she did then, but now she never would again. She knew who he was now. He was Death. He always had been and always would be.  
  
Images from the dream resurfaced as she remembered the thing that was Death standing guard at the door to that strange half-buried ruin while Methos walked away into the desert heat. Looking upon the thing that was Death she had once again experienced the terror of so long ago. And yet, looking upon Methos as he disappeared into the dessert, she found herself feeling... worship? Longing?  
  
*Love?*  
  
What was it that she had felt for him really, when the curses no longer fell from his lips and when his torments finally faded away? She understood that he had browbeaten her to such a point that she had truly forgotten what it was like to live before he began his terrible ministrations. Any respite from his tortures became had become such a blessing that it seemed as if it was the only happiness she had ever had.  
  
*stoppleasedonthurtmeilldowhateveryouwantpleasenomorepleasedontkillmestopithurts

ithurtssomuchpleasemasterletmedieletmedie*  
  
And yet, toward the end, long after he had destroyed her will to resist and had remade her into a thing for his pleasures... she remembered him watching her with a look that resembled something too close to regret for her liking. And she remembered soon after that, the tenderness he displayed as he took her from behind and enveloped her in his arms, his whole body shaking. And just held her. He never took her again after that.  
  
"And that's when for the first time, I had ever truly felt safe," she whispered to herself, more sadness than shock.  
  
Despite his station or her own tenuous position.  
  
Cassandra desperately tried to reconcile her dream to her memories of Methos, with each image fighting for dominance in her mind's eye, each demanding an appropriate action from her. Her mind was set three directions and her heart, two. Love. Fear. Hate. Absolution. Vengeance. She understood now that while her soul was strong enough, it too was a broken thing that limited her true potential.   
  
Which direction was right? Which action would salve what Methos had shattered so thoroughly? What could he ever offer her?  
  
Seeing that somehow in her turmoil she had gotten out of bed and had begun pacing the room, Cassandra took pause and resolved herself to the only action she was left with.  
  
"I will go and seek my answers, Father. I do not understand, but I wish to."  
  
With that, Cassandra began to pack her things.  
  
************  
The Gates  
Tampa Florida  
1999  
  
Before he was discharged in '48, Derek was with one of the two 11th airborne division regiments that made the paratrooper amphibious invasion of Nasugbu on the west coast of Batangas province in the Philippine Islands three years earlier.  
  
Suffering from shellshock, he soon found a kind of solace roaming the new highways with other 11th airborne veterans who couldn't survive the peace. A former motorcycle mechanic, he joined Otto Friedli in California, first as a member of the Pissed Off Bastards, then the splinter group Hells Angels.  
  
He joined the ranks of the undead in the '54, taken unaware at a whorehouse in the bay area of san Francisco, pissed drunk on old no. 7. To Derek, undeath offered nothing special. He still rode and fought and caused havoc wherever he was told to do so. All in all, not a really significant change in what he was doing before. Tonight was no exception.  
  
"Something's up with the Masters," he said to the rest of his nest, nodding to the closed door beyond the bar. "Seven of them at once doesn't sound right." To Derek's right sat a scarred black man named Bobby Forte.  
  
Bobby just nodded, baring his fangs as recognition. To his right, a tall skinny vampire named Aaron looked around the subdued but tense atmosphere within the gates, then lowered his head.  
  
"Chevalier's brood is here. Dechanko's too, over in the corner. I hear at least two separate blood feuds put on hold for... Something. I overheard someone earlier say that Mako and Jerome's entire brood got themselves perished last week."  
  
Derek raised an eye on this. "Mako? He had close to eighty vamps in his ranks. How the fuck did that happen? Was it the council and their whore Slayer?"  
  
"I don't think so," said a light voice behind him. Derek turned to see who entered the conversation and watched as a pale girl from the next table moved her chair closer. "Take a look there. The one with the Soundgarden T-shirt."  
  
Derek and the others turned to where the female vamp pointed to and flinched in revulsion at the individual they found. The vamp was young, probably not even thirty years turned. His right arm had been hacked off and most of the fingers on his left hand were missing. Burns covered most of his exposed flesh and his T-shirt is stained with pus, hinting of more wounds beneath. He was desperately trying to calm himself on a cigarette, but still trembling anyway.  
  
For a second or so, Derek was back at the gates of the Los Baños prison camp, looking at the tortured bodies of American servicemen and Filipino guerrillas.  
  
Derek could barely find his voice. "What the Hell happened to him?!"  
  
The pale girl who by then had introduced herself as Rhea, shook her head. "I don't know. Dechanko's brood found him like that a few hours ago. He's not all there anymore. He keeps muttering something over and over again. I don't know what it means... 'Nephilim' 'Death'"  
  
"Nephilim."  
  
"What the fuck is a Nephilim?" One of them asked.  
  
The night had been wearing down to a close when at that point the group of master vampires returned from their meeting from the bar's office.  
  
"A Nephilim is a creature who stands between the gates of Heaven and Hell. They walk across the sands of Purgatory minds and bodies unscathed. They stare down the face of God and laugh in the face of Hell. These beings are evil. Too evil to be let into Hell."  
  
Chevalier interrupts the other master by saying, "Very poetic Joshua. But I think it would be best if they understood the history of these creatures rather than the verses we have learned from our Masters. I fear American television has limited their attention spans..."  
  
Joshua, an ancient of his kind, grudgingly allowed the other master the stage. Looking to the gathered vampires Chevalier begins his story, "Anyone here read his Bible lately?"  
  
A soft chuckle went through the bar before the master silenced it with a glance.  
  
"There are too many legends out there, that we do not know for sure what these things are. I personally had thought them a myth or more likely an allegory in our histories, in order to teach us about power. But perhaps there are a few grains of truth to the story I will tell...  
  
"My own Sire once told me that the beginning did not start with light but in darkness. Long before the creation of Man, there were things in the darkness. Gods, some would call them, demons to others. But they were there. In time, form came to darkness and the old gods noticed this. Some chose to fall upon the primal earth like dead branches, and creatures rose from the sea swarming the lands over, building great cities at the Poles. It was in this darkness that evil had complete control over the this world."  
  
Another master picks up the story from there. "However, in time, the blasphemies reached the Heavens and God sent his angels to purge the earth. However not all of Heaven fought against the old gods. Some of the Host fought on our side. There were a few angels that sat back and watched the battle from a far in hopes of joining the war at an opportune time. These angels were thrown from Heaven by Michael himself who was disgusted by their lack of loyalty and courage."  
  
Chevalier continues. "Michael was a fool. These angels did not lack either loyalty or courage, but they were creatures of fire that knew that touch would consume everything. These were the first angels, created not out love, but anger. They were the ones that wrested Heaven away from the darkness in earlier wars but were abandoned soon after."  
  
Rhea found her voice and asked, "Then wouldn't these angels be in Hell?"  
  
Chevalier scowled at the interruption, but decided that the question had merit.  
  
"The legends say that Hell feared their presence and chose eternal torment rather than have these creatures of fire reside with them. That is all the legends say.  
  
"What we do know about these creatures is that ever since then, they have walked the earth, unchanging, these... Nephilim. Full of hate for all those around them. Their brothers in Heaven who have shunned them, their enemies in Hell who they see as the cause of their banishment. The mortals whose form they must take. Above all else, they hate themselves for existing."  
  
Derek nodded. A gesture of respect for the creatures. "Shellshock," he thought to himself. "It doesn't matter who builds the armies. We, the dough boys, always get abandoned in the end."  
  
"They still have the power of Heaven within them but over the eons it has been perverted, driving them insane. They chose mortal forms, in order slip unnoticed down through the centuries. But it is a form they loathe, being born of Fire. This they do by killing mortals and trapping the soul within their bodies. The souls are then twisted and infused with a strange power raising them from the dead as more of their kind. And yet, in order to sustain their mortal bodies, they are forced to murder their own offspring and eat the victim's soul. Compared to this fate, it is said that undeath itself is a charity for mortals.  
  
"They live the edge of a blade. A life of contradiction. Banished from the lands beyond death, the Nephilim claim the world as their own. A plaything for them to rule. But from the stories I've heard, in the end, only One among them will rule. And that one's kingdom… a barren lifeless Earth.  
  
One of the stronger lieutenants speaks up, "Why have we never run across these creatures before."  
  
Joshua, seeing that it is one of his brood answers the question. "Two reasons straight out. The first being that they loathe all life and try to stay way from it as much as possible, only on rare occasions do they make contact with the inhabitants of this world in order to fill their ranks or murder their own."  
  
"And the second?"  
  
"Because we are all still alive."  
  
"How do we stop them?" A question comes from the crowd.  
  
"You do not." Chevalier answers. "They can only be stopped when they decide to stop or another of their kind kills them. No being, vampire or mortal has gone against a Nephilim and survived."  
  
"What about Robert?" Another voice asks indicating to the dismembered vampire.  
  
"Yes, why don't we ask him?" Chevalier says, eyes narrowing. "What happened to you that night? Your existence at this point is contrary to what we have just heard."  
  
Robert stands shakily and begins to tell his story. "We were all at the Nest. Mako had told us to expect some trouble. He had actually gotten some kind of shipment from overseas and said that we might run into some heat for it. Mako was a little messed in the head, you all know that, but that night, he further off the bend than before... Screaming about objects of power, how he would be the one to unseal the Hell mouth and lay waste to the world!"  
  
"An artefact of some sort?" Dechanko asked.  
  
Robert takes another drag from the cigarette. "there was close to a hundred of us there at the Nest! It was quiet until the lights went out. Then the screaming started... And the fires! The tunnels beneath the nest were burning and the smoke rose through the floorboards!"  
  
The memories tore at the injured vampire as he relived the massacre at the nest.  
  
"It was like the building was sucked into Hell itself. We ran out into the open, many of us dying from the fires. From the nest, through the flames and smoke, that *thing* walked through. It looked like a man, like any other no different. Dressed in what could have been white, by then ruined by ash and blood and burning cinder. He just walked out, ignoring the flames. Across his shoulders was this big fucking gun! He just looked at us! He just looked at us! It was like we were nothing! Not even an annoyance!  
  
"We could have attacked him, there were a lot of us left, but there was something... wrong... about him that made my demon want to rip itself out of my body. Then he vanished. Mako screamed that it was a 'Nephilim,' said to run for it and we did! And when we reached the town proper, that's when the dying started all over again...  
  
The nest wasn't the only place where the power was out. The whole town was out. I could hear people... The phones weren't working, the water was stopped, there was nothing but static on the radio. There were explosions everywhere. I saw a van trying to escape, but it rolled over something and blew up big! I could hear the people! Over the roar of the fire was continuous screaming! And this sound... like canvas being torn...  
  
In the audience, Derek shifted uneasily at these descriptions. Something was familiar to it, especially the description of torn canvas, but he couldn't quite name it.  
  
"...someone had strung up barbed wire across the roads and into the bushes. I heard screams, there were booby traps everywhere! And then the town began to burn to the ground! Soon we couldn't hear anymore screaming...  
  
"Mako had us run to lake, where he had a boat, but when we got there we could see the lake on fire. Somebody had mined the lake! We had no way out! Then that thing was standing right in front of us! Looking at us! He shot at us! I don't know what he was using, but every bullet blew large holes in the bodies! Arms and legs were blown off! I lost my arm! I could swear it was just one bullet! A lot of us were dusted, decapitated from being shot in the throat!  
  
"Then the thing just dropped the gun and calmly walked over and pulled out a sword..."  
  
*Where is it demon?*  
  
Robert began to shake even more as the tremble took his whole body, remembering the things soft voice.  
  
"Mako screamed that it was a Nephilim and ordered those of us left to attack him but he was fast and stronger than any of us. There was so much blood and the screaming, the screaming wouldn't stop."  
  
"What happened to make, Robert?" Chevalier asks.  
  
"I don't know... we ran and didn't look back." The disgusted sounds from some of the vampires assembled can be heard.  
  
"You don't know what it was like! He descended on us like a plague wiping us out! The last thing I heard was Mako screaming. I was home free you know? I thought I had made it but something hit me hard in the back. I couldn't feel my legs and I could only turn around to see what it was that hit me."  
  
Robert's trembling becomes more exaggerated by the second.  
  
"It was just standing over me, looking at me... The thing nailed me to a tree and started to... to torture me.  
  
"I don't know how fucking long it was but I ruptured my throat screaming. When he stopped, it was more out of boredom than anything, then told me:  
  
"Interesting how much you can take. Oh well, I was just getting back in the harness, really. It's been so since I've done something like this. I hope I didn't forget anything.  
  
"Hmmm? I have a message to send, but someone seems to have burnt down the post office... You'll have to do... so I guess you get to live, then."  
  
Robert could barely stand as he remembered that thing talking to him, and related this to the assembled host.  
  
"What was the message?" Joshua asks.  
  
"I want my property back.."  
  
"No!" Joshua screams.  
  
"What is wrong Joshua?" One of the master vampires asks.  
  
"It's a trap! We must flee now!" Joshua says grabbing a case and trying to run for the door.  
  
"Why?" Chevalier grabs the other vampire causing him to drop the case which falls open. It's contents open for all to see.  
  
"Because of that!" Joshua says pointing at the now open case.  
  
Inside the case was a set sepia museum photographs lined with age. The photograph was of a bronze mask. A half skull mask with black eye staring out.  
  
Chevalier slaps Joshua as he says, "You mother fucking bastard! Do you know what you've done?!"  
  
At that point, the power died and an explosion rocked the bar and the doors to the kitchen blew open in a gout hungry flame.  
  
"Shit! What the fuck was that?!"  
  
"The tunnels were back there! We can't get through!"  
  
"We got to get to the cars! Now"  
  
"It's dawn you dyke fuck! We can't get out!  
  
And that's when the door to The Gates swung open and slight figure sauntered in, the rising dawn setting one vampire to flame. Over his shoulder was German MG42. He glanced around the now sealed-off building and smiled.  
  
"Before we get started, if anyone wants me to call 911 now, just raise your hand..."


	2. Secret treaties

Archivio Segreto Vaticano Vatican City, Rome November 1980  
  
From his office, Clark Cardinal Agustin S.J., stared outside his window upon the Cortile del Belvedere to admire the sunset light as it played upon the fountain and wondered what tomorrow would be like. Already, the times were changing.  
  
The Apostolic Library that surrounded the Cortile was an ancient sort, founded by Pope Sixtus IV in 1475 when his papal bull Ad decorem opened up the private papal libraries to the clergy. Over time, its columned marbled hallways began to collect from the four corners of the earth, an incalculable fortune in paper and parchment. The summation of the human knowledge in its entirety, in the attempt to understand the infinite knowledge of God.  
  
But knowledge in itself, is but a tool and only greater by the capacity of its creator. It is the will to use that knowledge that guides the hand that wields the final execution. And so it was that in time, the scouring of learned men brought forth many secrets, many great and many profane. Strange and different wisdoms, deep and occulted from monstrous pagan lands. From the north came the secret of runes, a thing wrought in pain by a hanged god. From the desert sands and the holds of the Mohammedans, the means with which to divine the secrets of God from the heavens. And from the lands beyond those of Prester John the Priest-King, the workings of the flesh and the lore of the apothecary.  
  
*Now what?*  
  
The keepers of the Hallowed Scriptorium understood the nature of knowledge and also too well the nature of flesh. And so, long before Lion XIII finally opened the Library in 1880 to the public, a great content was secreted away, to be forever kept until man's understanding could accept them. And thus was born the Vatican Secret Archives.  
  
The Cardinal paused and shut the curtains. And wondered what tomorrow would be like.  
  
************  
  
Cardinal Agustin thought about that morning as Vespers came and gone. At the request of His Holiness, Pope Johannes Paulus II, the Apostolic Library had been shut down and cordoned off this morning, in order to receive in utmost confidence, a most intriguing visitor. The President of the United States of America, His Excellency Jim Carter.  
  
Behind the Iron Curtain, desperate voices had once again began to find the strength to cry out against the cruelties of Soviet Oppression. In Poland, a blade's edge was drawn. Martial law had been declared in the past year as the strikes in Gdansk-Sopot-Gdynia shipyards over rising food prices came head to head with the Communist Polish Government. On both sides, a hesitancy. Which side would blink first and give the other an excuse to unleash a torrent of bloodshed? The world watched nervously. Impotent to act. Would there be another Prague Spring?  
  
The 71-year old American statesman had just presented news of the grimmest sort to the Patriarch of All the West. On the coffee table between them lay a well-thumbed seventy page report and assorted reconnaissance satellite photographs documenting and confirming Operation Wisona; a massive Soviet Red Army build-up right outside the Polish border, waiting for the final word. 18 Soviet divisions with orders to retake Poland. Due date: December 8, 1980.  
  
The Library itself had an almost distant atmosphere, one better found to a market. A deal was being made. Or more accurately, a choice of two evils.  
  
*Blackmail.*  
  
"I'm not asking you to compromise your faith your Holiness. Solidarity may have done all this on its own, but for their ideals to succeed, the movement will have to be brought in line with American Foreign Policy." The President says composed.  
  
"Poland already walks the edge of precipice." The Pope responded, drawn and tired. "I shudder to think of what may come if Moscow discovers American fingers in the pot."  
  
" Coordination and control must be established." The President tells the Pope.  
  
"I cannot show open support to your nation or any other nation Mr. President. Doing so would be an open cry for the support of Americanism."  
  
"Would that so bad? Even if my society is anathema to Roman Catholicism, is not the old adage true? 'Enemy of my enemy is my friend?'"  
  
"I will not be the excuse that Russia needs to invade my homeland."  
  
"I don't think you fully understand the political nuances involved."  
  
"Don't patronize me Mr. President. I am not a little prince, to be tolerated at the table. The Vatican has been a seat of political power long before the continent you call home was even discovered. Never forget that."  
  
"I apologize for my short sightedness, but you must realize the situation we have at present. In terms of conventional weapons, they outnumber us fifteen to one. We have a slight advantage over them in terms of nuclear armaments, but we all know that they will never be authorized. Already the left has been co-opted. That leaves us with the Black Projects to make up the difference."  
  
The Pope nods his acknowledgement. "Toys for spies."  
  
"I know nothing of the sort."  
  
*Poker.*  
  
They look at each other in silence each weighing which decision the other might make. The President speaks first, "Might I offer an alternative then?"  
  
Waving his hand for the President to continue Reagan says, "My country has many resources at hand that we use for the sole purpose of gathering information."  
  
"I am aware of your NSA."  
  
"What if I offered their services to you? All the information of the USSR's movements throughout Eastern Europe. Everything you need to tread carefully in this matter."  
  
*Fold.*  
  
"You're people are no doubt already in position throughout the area." The Pope says. "What do you want of us in return?"  
  
"I wish to have access to your contacts within the Polish Solidarity movement."  
  
The Pope scoffs, "You can have access to them but I cannot force them to do anything anymore than you can force me. What else are you trying to accomplish?"  
  
"The United States is at war, it is a war that we cannot loose. To fight a war we need weapons, the strongest and best weapons available."  
  
"Your country already has that."  
  
*And 40 years to refine Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring's saucer technology.*  
  
"And the Russians have counters for them. The spooks have been agitating for a new breed of weapon in their silent war, something the Russians, in their frame of mind, cannot consider as conceivable."  
  
"And you think that the Vatican has such a weapon?"  
  
**  
  
The President smiled, pointing to a nearby 10th-century Copt Bible. "As child at Sunday school, the old school marm would tell us stories of great feats and impossible happenings that we were taught to keep faith by for they were true. We already have most of the pieces of the puzzle. All we want is a quick peek at the box cover. Do you agree to my terms?"  
  
*What choice do you leave me?*  
  
"I will give you the contact information you want," The Pope says writing down some information, "But for you other request you need to talk to this man." He hands him the piece of paper.  
  
"That is all I ask." Carter says standing up. "Thank you for you council your Holiness." With those last words the President of the United States exits the room.  
  
Once outside the President motions to one of his aides, "Give this information to the DCI. He'll know what to do with it."  
  
Inside the chambers the Pope sighs in a weariness that belies his true age. An aide is summoned. "Tell Cardinal Agustin that he should expect visitors and that his earlier suspicions to where the missing files of the Ahnenerbe- SS ended up were correct."  
  
A pause in thought.  
  
"Send a communiqué to Tel-Aviv by way of Patriarch Giuseppe Biltritti in Jerusalem. This 'Project 314' bears too many similarities to what my old friends in the Resistance observed Reichsführer Himmler testing in Kraków."  
  
Pause.  
  
"And have the Swiss mercenaries on standby. We may be left to clean up this mess."  
  
*Again.*  
  
************ 


End file.
